Bloom's Period Studies Harold Bloom The Harlem Renaissance (2003)

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.1 After World War I this interest grew, and whiteswere increasingly attracted to Harlem.Some blacks had misgivings, butleaders such as the writer James Weldon Johnson and Charles Johnson, thehead of the National Urban League, regarded white interest as a positivedevelopment.Charles Johnson in particular hoped that white interest inblack arts would lead to public exposure and more professional opportunitiesfor Negro painters and sculptors.This desire did not take long tomaterialize.In March 1924 Harlem leaders held a dinner attended byinfluential figures in the New York cultural community and young blackartists.The guest speaker was W.E.B.Du Bois, who explained that althoughhis generation had been denied its true voice, the time had come for the endof the literature of apology. In particular Du Bois praised James WeldonJohnson for providing an inspiration to young black artists.By the end of theevening, Du Bois s message moved one of the white participants, PaulKellog, to make a unique offer.Addressing Charles Johnson, Kellog, theeditor of Survey Graphic, offered to devote an entire issue of his mainstreamcultural magazine to the new black artists, an offer Johnson gladlyaccepted.2From Aaron Douglas: Art, Race, and the Harlem Renaissance.� 1995 by the University Press ofMississippi.179180Amy Helene KirschkeWhy would such a magazine wish to do a special issue on Harlem? Theoffer was unprecedented but not as unusual as it might seem.The magazineSurvey appeared twice a month, a graphic issue on the first, with a decoratedcover, and a midmonthly issue on the fifteenth, printed on lighter stock andunbound.Although the magazine s subscribers were predominantly white, itseditors were open to the forces of change they saw sweeping the world.Comparing the cultural development of black America with newlyindependent Ireland and revolutionary Russia and Mexico, the editors soughtmonth by month and year by year to follow the subtle traces ofrace growth and interaction through the shifting outline of socialorganization and by the flickering light of individualachievement.There are times when these forces that work soslowly and so delicately seem suddenly to flower and webecome aware that the curtain has lifted on a new act in thedrama of part or all of us.If The Survey reads the signs right,such a dramatic flowering of a new race-spirit is taking place closeat home among American Negroes, and the stage of that newepisode is Harlem.3The special issue of Survey Graphic, with Alain Locke as chief editor,appeared in March 1925.It was titled Harlem: Mecca of the New Negro.Survey Graphic had an extraordinary impact on Aaron Douglas.In laterinterviews, he always insisted that one of the main reasons he came toHarlem was the inspiration he derived from this one magazine.What couldan issue of Survey Graphic possibly contain that would make Harlem seem soinviting and interesting, so open to a young artist? It was the firstcomprehensive study devoted entirely to Harlem, and it contained theviewpoints of blacks and whites, women and men, scholars, sociologists, civilleaders, and poets.It explored every aspect of life there, including theopportunities and excitement and the disappointments and problems.More important, this issue of Survey Graphic offers an extraordinarylook into the cultural milieu in which Aaron Douglas would work andprovides detail on some of the important influences on his work.In fourimportant areas the discussion of the New Negro, the problems andopportunities of the city of Harlem, the importance of Africa for the blackartist, and the highlighting of the work of Winold Reiss Survey Graphicmerits special attention.The New Negro was a product of a world created in the aftermath ofWorld War I, when a host of new nations replaced former empires and181The Pulse of the Negro Worldkingdoms [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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